


Intricacies of the Heart

by PanicFOB



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Christmas Time, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:35:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21671563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PanicFOB/pseuds/PanicFOB
Summary: A vacation to Tony's winter villa on Lake Placid brings old feelings into a new light.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader
Kudos: 74





	Intricacies of the Heart

Whoever was living under the impression that the Avengers did not take vacations was dreadfully wrong. The team took them quite often, and they were always exceedingly lavish ones paid for straight from Tony’s pocket. Not that the man was ever hurting financially, and he was usually the one to suggest these extravagant vacations in the first place. Despite him having a family now with Pepper and Morgan, he still liked to throw a good party at any given opportunity or spend hours lounging around and day drinking.

These vacations were not always sunny and beachside. Sometimes they were explorations of other cultures, like when they traveled to places like Greece or India or Argentina. Sometimes they were physical activity-centric, like when they ventured to Utah and hiked five different parts of the state on five different days. Other times, these vacations were perfectly laced with holiday spirit, like the one you were on now as thick flutters of snow fell hard across Lake Placid.

You watched each one of them spin through the air and drop to the ground from your cozy perch inside the cabin window. Well, Tony referred to it as a cabin, you thought of it more as a ridiculously fancy winter villa. The huge overlooking window had one of those plush window seats, and the large fireplace of the cabin’s main room created an almost inescapable warmth throughout the entire place.

On the fluffy rug in front of the hearth, Morgan and all three of Clint’s children were playing a game of Sorry!. On the couch, Clint and Natasha were discussing some new variety of knives that they were both thinking about getting Bucky for Christmas gifts. You smirked to yourself at the thought; that man did love his knives. That’s not what you had bought for him though. You’d been afraid of getting him anything seemingly too sentimental, so you had bought him a couple pairs of festive socks.

Your relationship with Bucky was getting rather… complicated. It was the type of scenario you had watched play out badly in other people’s lives a hundred times before but never thought you would be experiencing it yourself. The two of you had somewhere along the line become friends with benefits, fuck buddies, lovers with no strings attached… no matter what you chose to call it, it was still shit.

Were you complaining about the sex? Of course not. But honestly, the only reason you had agreed to it in the first place was that you didn’t believe Bucky would ever want to be with you in a more than friends kind of way. The first time you fell into bed together, it had almost felt like an accident, one that the two of you hastily tried to forget and never mention to anyone else. When there was a repeat, it became clear that Bucky wanted you in a physical way, just not in an emotional one.

And then more physical entanglements kept occurring after that, but it was the connection with words that was lacking between the two of you. You felt like you knew the man better than anyone else on the team, but at the same time, there was a chasm between the two of you. You felt more disconnected from him now than you ever had since coming to work for Pepper.

He had been your first friend at the compound, helping you press the elevator button when your hands had been full of files and papers and coffees on your second day of work. You knew he could tell how overwhelmed you’d been, and he took pity on you, giving you an encouraging smile and offering to help you carry all the things to Pepper’s office. And then he was your friend. He stopped by to brighten your days when he wasn’t gone with Steve and Sam on missions. He brought you breakfast sometimes and asked if you’d done anything interesting over the weekends. He learned everything under the sun about you, and you him.

You’d been in love with him since the day that you’d texted him before bed telling him how miserable work had been and he’d sent you an adorable video of a dachshund accidentally locking its owner out of their running car. It was the response that you hadn’t even realized you’d been looking for, but it was a perfect one. It cheered you right up, and from then on, you always turned to Bucky in times of crisis or despair. And he always knew what to do to make it better, without fail.

However, now that you were sleeping with him, it seemed that the very man himself was always at the root of your despair, and he was the last person you were willing to talk to about it. You felt yourself pulling away. Giving him every last physical part of you, but depriving him of all the intricacies of your heart. It was complicated. Fucked up. A situation cursed from the start. One you had known better than to get involved in. But one that felt inevitable each time you caught those crinkled eyes looking your way.

The socks signified that you’d thought about him enough to buy him a present, but you hadn’t thought about him any more than any of the other Avengers. Despite that being the furthest thing from the truth.

Two nights later, on Christmas Eve, everyone exchanged gifts. You worried about what Bucky might have gotten for you. If it was something special and sentimental, then you might have misjudged how he felt about you. Your concerns were for naught, however, because he gifted you a new pen set that was equally as unimpressive as the socks you handed over to him.

“Wow, a dabbing Santa Claus, huh?” he said with amusement dancing through his bright eyes.

“Seemed very Winter Soldier-esque to me,” you answered him with a shrug, trying your best to suppress a smile.

He pulled you in for a one-armed hug and whispered into your hair, “I love them. Thank you.”

You ended up in his room later that night after all the children had been tucked into bed with hopes of Santa filling their stockings as they dreamed. Most of the other adults were still huddled around the fireplace drinking spiked eggnog and singing off-key to classic Christmas carols. You and Bucky slipped away amidst the splendor and found your holiday spirit in a different sort of fashion.

Maybe you were simply imagining things, or maybe what you had manifested had suddenly come true, but it didn’t feel like Bucky was fucking you this time. It felt like he was making love to you. As you lay together under a red and green plaid duvet, you were afraid to utter a single syllable about the tenderness and care with which he had caressed you that night. You thought if the words were put out there for him to contemplate, he might flat-out deny it.

You kept quiet, and after the rise and fall of his chest had evened out into a peaceful sleep, you crept back to your own room.

On Christmas day, Tony had arranged for everyone to go on a sleigh ride. You trekked out to the frozen lakeside as a group, and three separate horse-drawn sleighs were awaiting the likes of you. You hopped onto the back seat of the one Sam and Steve had commandeered, and without prompting, Bucky slid into the seat right next to you. You happened to glance down at his foot and noticed the socks you’d given him peeking out from the gap between his pants and his shoes.

The man at the front of the sleigh encouraged the horses to take off, and they did with a sudden jolt. You gripped onto Bucky’s thigh without really thinking about it, and he looked at you with a contented smile. Steve and Sam wouldn’t shut up for most of the ride, but you didn’t mind. It was nice to sit at the back with Bucky, both of you simply listeners and observers to this winter entertainment. Enjoying the glimmering white landscape, the occasional thick-coated animal, and the bickering and quips being shared between the two men in front of you.

Eventually, the two goofballs had the driver stop the sleigh so that they could get a closer look at a Bull Moose clomping through the trees. You remained on the sleigh, waiting out their little side adventure, and the warmth that was Bucky Barnes never left you. The cool air was quiet and the sun was reflecting off the snow as the man positioned his lips just near your left ear and whispered, “I love you.”

You glanced over at him in disbelief. “What?”

“I was going to tell you last night, but then it didn’t feel right for the first time of me saying that to be right after we… well, you know. And then I accidentally fell asleep because it’s just so damn comfortable snuggling with you. And when I woke up, you were gone.”

You’d barely heard a word of his little speech, still trying to fully comprehend those first three words he had uttered. “You love me?”

“I was trying to show you that last night, but I don’t think I got the message across. So, now I’m telling you, and I don’t know how to make it any clearer.”

“But… I … But I thought that you… only saw me as a friend… whom you liked to fuck…” You glanced at the back of the driver’s head, hoping he wasn’t listening in on this delicate conversation.

“Where’d you get that idea? I’ve been trying to win your heart since that first day on the elevator. After a while, well, I sensed that you weren’t ready to fully open up to me, and I thought if the only way I could have you was in that way, then I’d take what I could get. But I need you to know now that I’m in deep, have been for a while. You’re it for me, Y/N.”

You were nearly crying tears of joy at this point. It had all seemed so far-fetched, so out of your grasp to have this man saying such sweet words to you. “Oh Bucky, I love you too, you romantic sap.”

The kiss you shared was barely the span of a heartbeat before Steve and Sam were climbing back onto the sleigh and giving you approving whistles. You looked into Bucky’s eyes lovingly. “We’ll continue this later,” you promised with a delightful grin.


End file.
